


drift

by copperiisulfate



Category: Captain America (Movies), Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-22
Updated: 2014-05-23
Packaged: 2018-01-26 02:12:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1670894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperiisulfate/pseuds/copperiisulfate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They used to pretend sometimes, when they were younger and the East Coast Jaeger Program had just been developed and was heavily publicized.</p><p>They would stand across from one another like disproportionate mirror images, mimicking each other’s motions, laughing. Steve was always a fraction of a second slower but, otherwise, they came close to synchronised, could have been the left and right hemispheres of the mind that drove a machine, a mile-high shield with arms and legs and a heart that was meant to defend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Steve and Bucky were twelve and thirteen respectively when they had returned from a school trip to the Long Island Shatterdome.

Most of it was spent oohing and aahing at the new Mark-4 Jaeger that was being prepared for initialization and fine-tuned before their eyes and, that night, Bucky had sat down beside Steve on the rickety steps of Steve’s aunt’s fire escape. They’d both wound up staying with her after the last Kaiju attack—the second one to ever have hit the Atlantic and the coast nowhere  _near_  prepared—had wiped out something like a tenth of Brooklyn’s population, their parents included. 

But Bucky, bright-eyed and grinning, looked at Steve now and said, “Co-pilot?”

At which, Steve just laughed. “What are you on about?”

Steve was small and frail and he’d been left breathless by the sight of his first Jaeger during the Brooklyn attack (and no, he meant, like  _literally breathless—_ had had three asthma attacks in an hour when Bucky had tried to grab his wrist and  _run,_ even if, in retrospect, his asthma might have been what saved his life when he and Bucky had huddled and hidden under the rubble, digging to find his dropped inhaler).

As incredible as he’d found the idea of fighting to save humanity by the sheer force of  _working together_  and as much as he’d want to one day try…these days, he mostly hoped he’d live long enough to maybe finish middle school and not become Kaiju lunch in the process.

Still, he liked the sound of it, liked the way Bucky said it, and the way it would light his face up.

*

They used to pretend sometimes, when they were younger and the East Coast Jaeger Program had just been developed and was heavily publicized.

They would stand across from one another like disproportionate mirror images, mimicking each other’s motions, laughing. Steve was always a fraction of a second slower but, otherwise, they came close to synchronised, could have been the left and right hemispheres of the mind that drove a machine, a mile-high shield with arms and legs and a heart that was meant to defend.

They used to argue about names too. Steve liked the sound of _Captain America_  but Bucky had laughed and said that it was too stars and stripey.

And when December hit Brooklyn two years ago and brought with it a blizzard, three feet of snow and a Knifehead from the Atlantic, they had sat by the windows of Steve’s aunt’s apartment, cups of cocoa left cold and forgotten, and Bucky had said: _Winter Soldier._

Steve had felt his stomach drop then because it sounded so cold, so lonely. It didn’t sound like the name for something two people piloted together, their hearts and minds as one, but then it had been a rough winter on both of them, and so, he hadn’t said anything at all.

*

Now, on his aunt’s fire escape, it was nearing the end of their third spring here, together, and Steve had no idea what their future would hold.  _But hey,_  he thought.  _Maybe words have power._

Or maybe, it was not much more than them playing out the old game.

Either way, Steve looked up at the night sky and then back to Bucky, echoed it back at it him, like he wanted to keep a promise he wasn't even sure he could make:

"Co-pilot." 


	2. Chapter 2

 

Effectively, their fates had been sealed long before they stood face to face, smirking at one another, ready for the combat training as per protocol.

And at the end of training, Bucky had grabbed him by the arm, lifted him up off the mat and grinned at him, that same grin that had the power to warm even the coldest, darkest winter nights in Steve’s memory, and declared him his co-pilot in front of the room. It was never a matter of question, never up for debate, and never a secret between them, but that they would manage to get here  _at all_  would always feel like a welcome surprise.

 

*

 

Steve had grown, both in size and also out of some of the ailments from his childhood. The asthma had nearly disappeared but the rheumatic fever had done a number on his heart, still left his rhythm a little out of whack, but nothing he couldn’t live with. The thing about the Jaeger Program— _the best thing,_  he'd always thought—was that his individual strength was never going to be what defined him. It was going to be how his pulse would mirror Bucky’s, how easily they would fit inside each other’s minds. And that? That had always come easy, more reflexive than blinking and breathing.

 

*

 

It was a bit of a belated but hilarious realization when they found out that the Pan Atlantic Defense Corps did not actually let the Rangers name the Jaeger. Rather, they were assigned to a meticulously designed mobile weapon with a preformed style and neurological identity.

 _Howling Commando_  was to be theirs.

Steve had found that he loved the sound of it, and later, when they were let into the Long Island Shatterdome as rangers for the very first time, and by none other than Marshal Fury, Bucky nearly tripped over himself at the sight of it.

It was a stunning hunter green Mark-4 with silver plating at the chest and the back, bronze along the arms and legs, built light for speed and notorious for its long-range fire.

They both fell in love with every last bit of it within minutes of the tour. Bucky was practically bouncing on his toes and Steve was just trying to bite down his grin and hold on to the rush of warmth in his chest, partly at the sight of Bucky’s enthusiasm, and partly, because it finally hit him, sudden and startling, that  _this was real,_  and not only that, but it was theirs  _and they had made it._

But really, mostly, it was the sight of Bucky.

 

*

 

Later that night, when neither of them could sleep from the nervous excitement before the test-run the next morning, Bucky said to him, wry, from the top bunk, “It’s too bad that you can’t go around and say you’re gonna pilot Captain America.”

"Screw off." Steve smiled against his pillow and refused to own up to his relief that Bucky hadn’t been able to name it something wintry and depressing either.

When it got as late as half past three and they were both still wide awake with not much more than a couple of hours to potentially sleep, Bucky finally gave in.

"Hey," he mumbled. "I’m coming down," and Steve pressed himself closer to the wall and made room for him.

When they had been kids and had restless, fitful nights, it used to do the trick. Their bodies were much bigger now, and these beds were not made to be shared, and well, it seemed that some habits died hard.

 

*

 

The thing was: when you drifted with someone, there were no secrets.

It was a physiologic impossibility that defied the entire meaning of the drift. 

As it were, there were hardly any secrets between them, but this—it wasn’t quite—it was different, somehow.

He and Bucky had never needed to outright say it. Before, there had been neither cause nor opportunity to put into words the way they had felt, the entire tangled mess of friend-love and brother-love and  _you’re-the-thing-that-keeps-me-living-breathing-forever-going_ -love and all the other kinds that were wrapped up in there and fell in between the lines.

But here, after the silver-blue haze of their first drift faded into the waking world and they opened their eyes, still a little dazed and disoriented, still a little breathless, they barely managed to stumble back into their room when Bucky pressed Steve against the door and kissed him, deep and desperate and aching, pouring more than a decade, every bit of that tangled mess of feeling into it.

His eyes were shining and he said over and over, “ _God,_  Steve. Thank god," and burrowed his face in Steve’s shoulder and laughed, self-deprecating. "Used to think I was alone in it, that it was just something—just all in my head."

And Steve laughed, soft, against his neck. “Never, ever alone,” he said, and held him close and tight against himself.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Purely self-indulgent crossover that I have always wanted, being written and edited slowly without any real sense of direction.


End file.
